UNAM SANCTAM

Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302

Urged by faith, we are obliged to believe and to maintain that the Church
is one, holy, catholic, and also apostolic. We believe in her firmly and
we confess with simplicity that outside of her there is neither salvation
nor the remission of sins, as the Spouse in the Canticles [Sgs 6:8] proclaims:
'One is my dove, my perfect one. She is the only one, the chosen of
her who bore her,' and she represents one sole mystical body whose
Head is Christ and the head of Christ is God [1 Cor 11:3]. In her then
is one Lord, one faith, one baptism [Eph 4:5]. There had been at the time
of the deluge only one ark of Noah, prefiguring the one Church, which ark,
having been finished to a single cubit, had only one pilot and guide, i.e.,
Noah, and we read that, outside of this ark, all that subsisted on the
earth was destroyed.

We venerate this Church as one, the Lord having said by the mouth of
the prophet: 'Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword and my only one
from the hand of the dog.' [Ps 21:20] He has prayed for his soul, that
is for himself, heart and body; and this body, that is to say, the Church,
He has called one because of the unity of the Spouse, of the faith, of
the sacraments, and of the charity of the Church. This is the tunic of
the Lord, the seamless tunic, which was not rent but which was cast by
lot [Jn 19:23- 24]. Therefore, of the one and only Church there is one
body and one head, not two heads like a monster; that is, Christ and the
Vicar of Christ, Peter and the successor of Peter, since the Lord speaking
to Peter Himself said: 'Feed my sheep' [Jn 21:17], meaning, my sheep
in general, not these, nor those in particular, whence we understand that
He entrusted all to him [Peter]. Therefore, if the Greeks or others should
say that they are not confided to Peter and to his successors, they must
confess not being the sheep of Christ, since Our Lord says in John 'there
is one sheepfold and one shepherd.' We are informed by the texts of
the gospels that in this Church and in its power are two swords; namely,
the spiritual and the temporal. For when the Apostles say: 'Behold,
here are two swords' [Lk 22:38] that is to say, in the Church, since
the Apostles were speaking, the Lord did not reply that there were too
many, but sufficient. Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword
is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord
commanding: 'Put up thy sword into thy scabbard' [Mt 26:52]. Both,
therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual
and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church
but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the
latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance
of the priest.

However, one sword ought to be subordinated to the other and temporal
authority, subjected to spiritual power. For since the Apostle said: 'There
is no power except from God and the things that are, are ordained of God'
[Rom 13:1-2], but they would not be ordained if one sword were not subordinated
to the other and if the inferior one, as it were, were not led upwards
by the other.

For, according to the Blessed Dionysius, it is a law of the divinity
that the lowest things reach the highest place by intermediaries. Then,
according to the order of the universe, all things are not led back to
order equally and immediately, but the lowest by the intermediary, and
the inferior by the superior. Hence we must recognize the more clearly
that spiritual power surpasses in dignity and in nobility any temporal
power whatever, as spiritual things surpass the temporal. This we see very
clearly also by the payment, benediction, and consecration of the tithes,
but the acceptance of power itself and by the government even of things.
For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish
the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus
is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the
ecclesiastical power: 'Behold to-day I have placed you over nations,
and over kingdoms' and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power
err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual
power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the
highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man,
according to the testimony of the Apostle: 'The spiritual man judgeth
of all things and he himself is judged by no man' [1 Cor 2:15]. This
authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by
man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word
and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter
confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, 'Whatsoever you shall bind
on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven' etc., [Mt 16:19]. Therefore
whoever resists this power thus ordained by God, resists the ordinance
of God [Rom 13:2], unless he invent like Manicheus two beginnings, which
is false and judged by us heretical, since according to the testimony of
Moses, it is not in the beginnings but in the beginning that God created
heaven and earth [Gen 1:1]. Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we
define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature
be subject to the Roman Pontiff.